


Another Escape

by silencedancer



Category: Tangled (2010)
Genre: F/M, Yuletide 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:06:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,082
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silencedancer/pseuds/silencedancer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Learning to be a princess at age eighteen is not exactly the most thrilling thing in the world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Another Escape

**Author's Note:**

  * For [robinasnyder](https://archiveofourown.org/users/robinasnyder/gifts).



Almost eighteen years of living in a tower did not prepare Rapunzel for being a princess. As happy as they were to be reunited with their daughter, her parents worried about the fact that she did not grow up with the education a princess ought to have had. They quickly went about arranging for the appropriate tutors to come to the castle and to teach their long-lost daughter the proper knowledge for the heir of a prosperous kingdom.

Rapunzel found much of it tedious and unbearable. She found her language and history studies interesting for the most part, but the endless hours of etiquette and diplomatic studies wore on her. Often during her lessons, she dreamed of leaving the castle and having _fun_ instead of sitting there, listening to tutors drone on about boring things.

What was worse was when she tried to do things that she loved to do when she still lived in Mother Gothel's tower, only to be told that “princesses didn't do that”. The cooks didn't care that she knew how to bake – every time she tried to use the ovens in the palace kitchens, they shooed her out and gently told her that a proper lady should not be spending time in such a place.

When she tried to paint the walls of her room, to cheer herself up, she was reprimanded by her parents. It was even the first argument that she had with them and the feeling that she had after was far too similar to the feelings she had experienced after her arguments with Mother Gothel. It felt horrible. These were her _real_ parents, not the woman who had kidnapped her for her hair, but the feelings were the same.

She wanted to do what _she_ wanted and not worry about if it's proper for a princess (or in the case of the painting, proper décor for her room). Sometimes she wondered if she only just left one tower for another. Her parents were reluctant to ever let her leave unless she had several guards and she was lucky whenever that happened. That one day that she spent free with Eugene haunted her. It wasn't as if she didn't see Eugene – she did. It's just that it wasn't the same.

Her parents were also not too certain about Eugene too. That was the other thing that bothered Rapunzel. She supposed that it was understandable that her parents would be a little overprotective, especially considering that from their perspective she had been missing for almost eighteen years, but it was just too much for a girl who had been confined to one tower for the same time. Whenever she tried to explain this to her parents, they told her that they understood, yet they still did not let her do anything she wanted.

At least, while her parents had their reservations about Eugene (apparently rescuing their long-lost daughter was not quite enough for them to overlook his multiple acts of past thievery), she did get to meet with him on the one day she had off from her lessons. She looked forward to these weekly meetings as Eugene was the only person who actually bothered to listen to her and understand her problems. 

She quite simply was a dreamer and when she had obtained one dream, she always came up with another. Her dream once was to see the floating lights and that brought her to her dream of being with Eugene, but now that both of those dreams were fulfilled...she kept on dreaming of amazing things. Which her parents wouldn't let her do...at least not yet while she was getting her education on how to be a princess.

Eugene knew all about the urge to have adventures and to be free. After all, it was the same urge that led him to become Flynn Rider, even if it didn't turn out exactly the way he wanted it to. Still, that need to get out and do what you want was something he was very familiar with indeed.

It bothered Eugene that Rapunzel was once again feeling trapped in her own life, especially considering that she was eighteen and more than ready herself to do what she wanted. He was there to see her joy upon finally seeing the world beyond the tower and he knew what she looked like when she was depressed (which he rather hated to see).

Eugene decided to do what he did for her before and take her on a grand adventure. Of course, this time, he made sure to ask her parents permission (as almost being executed once was once too many times) and planned to not go on a huge adventure, but a small one. A picnic maybe. Maximus, the horse, would come along because well, what better guard than a horse whose dedication to doing what was right was better than most humans?

(Besides, as Eugene remembered, if it wasn't for Maximus, he and Rapunzel wouldn't be together...and he'd probably also be dead. All in all, the horse deserved some time off frolicking in the sunshine though Eugene had a hard time imagining Maxiumus doing any such thing.)

Her parents, much to Eugene's surprise, agreed. 

For you see, they too had been noticing that Rapunzel was not lately her own full of sunshine self. That she was sighing far too often and looking out the window. It concerned them, considering that she was indeed their only child, but they were uncertain of what to do with this person that they barely knew. Eugene's suggestion was a relief to them because they simply did not know that between being trapped in a tower for all of the girl's memory and now being trapped in lessons that both of them remembered as being quite boring, Rapunzel was feeling restless and unhappy.

So on the day that Rapunzel was to have her weekly meeting with Eugene, instead of being taken to the library (their usual meeting spot), she was taken to the stables, where Maximus and two of his horse friends were waiting with Eugene. She noticed the picnic baskets strapped to the horses's saddles and let out a big cry of joy, knowing that her woes had be noticed and she'd get to go out of the castle without all those guards and instead just spend time with the people she loved.

It was one of the best gifts Eugene could've given her for her half-birthday.


End file.
